Toy Maker wrote:(I have heard) from a few different people now, that the Silver-9 Tube amps my father got his hands on are:"The best Tube amps in the world" Now just how realistic is that statement ??

Not very realistic at all. It's a completely subjective subject. Much like food. You may have your version of the "best" mac-and-cheese....but others may not like yours and I have "the best". It's all BS when someone in our hobby says that something's "the best". Also, I believe that you may be confusing the Silver Seven's with the Silver 9's. Only a small handful of folks in the world have even heard the Silver 9's to my knowledge. The S7's were/are what is held in high regard.

That said, the amps that Dave bought [the lucky bastard that he is] are still regarded as being some of the best produced throughout the history of audio. Problem is, not many folks have heard them. That's about to change but I doubt the observations will change that much, at least that's my educated decision based upon my experience with Bob's work first hand without having ever heard them.

Those that attend Carverfest this year can make their own observations and come to their own conclusions as to how they sound.

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The best way to enjoy digital music reproduction is to never listen to a good analogue reproduction.

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Tom, I think that you are missing one key word in your statement about the Silver 9 tube amps:

Only a handful of people have heard OF the Silver 9 Tube Amps, let alone heard them.

The Silver 6 Tube amps are also rarely heard of or known despite there reputedly being about 50 pairs in existence and DaveS also owns a set of those.

The Silver 7 Tube Amps are the ones that the most people have heard about, have been reviewed in magazines and touted as being AMONG the best amps ever made; all 50 pairs of them. The Silver 9 Tube Amps are the rarest of all the Carver Amps as production figures for them vary from 2 to 4 pairs in total (Bob owns 1 pair, the Editor of The Absolute Sound received a pair from Bob and DaveS's pair are the only ones I have been able to document)

From what I have been able to piece together, the Silver 6 (12 tube) were rated at 300WPC, the Silver 7 (15 tube) were rated at 375WPC and the Silver 9 (20 tube) were rated at somewhere between 525 and 575WPC .

This might explain why the early Silver-7t amps were rated at 375WPC and the later ones (as well as the Silver-9t) were rated at 575WPC.

There must be 7 pair of the Silver 9s out there. Up until recentlly Bob didn`t have a pair but built 2 pair in Candy Apple Red for himself and someone saw them and bought a pair from him. I never took mine out of the box (Rita & Bob get to take them out for the first time since they left the BENCH) to look for a serial number so this is just guess work. I`ll ask Bob Tuesday for the real story.

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DaveS wrote:There must be 7 pair of the Silver 9s out there. Up until recentlly Bob didn`t have a pair but built 2 pair in Candy Apple Red for himself and someone saw them and bought a pair from him. I never took mine out of the box (Rita & Bob get to take them out for the first time since they left the BENCH) to look for a serial number so this is just guess work. I`ll ask Bob Tuesday for the real story.

Good to know Dave. Sooner or later all of this is going to get straightened out.

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